


Glory, Glory, Glory

by Earlgreysunshine



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Greek Mythology - Freeform, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-22
Updated: 2014-12-22
Packaged: 2018-03-02 20:54:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2825807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Earlgreysunshine/pseuds/Earlgreysunshine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Atlas, the boy who held the world on his shoulders. Atlas, the Titan who waged war on the king of the gods. Atlas, whose very name means endurance of a never-ending burden. Yes, Stiles thinks, Atlas is a good name.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Glory, Glory, Glory

**Author's Note:**

> I had this idea of Stiles connecting with Atlas right before season 3b and Jackson connecting with Thanatos the Greek god of death, gentle and non violent death, but death all the same, because of the kanima. It is my first work and I'll probably edit it later, but for now it's fine.

Stiles wonders if he should just start signing Atlas instead of his name. Change his contact info on Scott's phone, see just how long it takes him to notice.

It seems fitting, considering he was dumb enough to hoist the weight of the world on his shoulders not once but twice.

He thinks about this, tries it on his tongue when he's running from bullets and the stench of death. Writes it and scratches it out a million times on the overdue mortgage notices. Traces it on Jackson's skin before he leaves so nobody knows he has deigned to fuck Stilinski. 

Atlas, the boy who held the world on his shoulders. Atlas, the Titan who waged war on the king of the gods. Atlas, whose very name means endurance of a never-ending burden. Yes, stiles thinks, Atlas is a good name.

************

He wonders if Atlas ever thought about dropping it, letting the weight if the sky crush the earth and himself with it. Stiles knows he did. He would too. 

Stiles understands that sometimes it takes all he has just to get up and make dinner. He understands that hanging with Scott when Alison won't return his calls is enough to make his stomach roll. 

Sometimes all he can do to stop the world from spinning is sleep. Whenever he's awake his back is hunched, neck bent, shoulders weak with the mass of the world. Sleep, and those one in a million moments in Jackson's Porsche going 100 mph for as far away as they can until dawn. 

********  
Stiles likes the stars, the constellations, and the stories they tell. It reminds him of why he continues to hold the glass done of the sky above the world. 

He hopes he does a good enough job that when he fails they will hang him up there too. 

******

Sometimes when he's alone in the house he hears a voice. Always offering to build him a pillar to hold the weight, or better yet the voice offers to take it from him completely. 

He tries not to pay attention. 

He does. 

Only because whenever he listens he always wakes up screaming his lungs out.

******

Jackson tries, he really does. But he's also doing his best to regain the strength to hold his own world up. 

And maybe Jackson doesn't admit he needs Stiles, maybe doesn't ever say the words "I love you" but it's ok. It's hard to love when you can barley live. 

And stiles knows that Jackson is the best thing he's ever had, besides his dad. 

****** 

Jackson comes to stiles house every other night. Sometimes they fuck, sometimes they talk, but in the end Jackson always ends up sleeping directly on top of Stiles. He always stays the night, and always leaves before dawn. 

Stiles used to worry about Scott smelling Jackson everywhere, over his clothes, his bed, him, but Scott doesn't. Actually Scott hasn't been over since him and Allison got back together, so three months ago but stiles isn't counting. He's not.

***** 

It was the summer of sophomore year. Jackson and Stiles had been almost friends for two months, only because:

1.) Lydia wanted nothing to do with either of them.

2.) Danny was still pissed at Jackson for acting weird.

3.) Derek insisted Jackson spent some time with a pack member (Stiles was still not a pack member but Jackson refused to spend time with anyone else).

So Stiles and Jackson had spent two months together, reading, sleeping, and oddly enough talking. 

 

And on October 19 at 11:23 pm Stiles was telling Jackson all about the story of Orion and Artemis, and how she gave him a place in the stars so she could pass by every night and see him.

The conversation lulled and stiles big fat mouth decided to blurt out the three words he knew Jackson couldn't stand.

"I love you." 

Holy shit, I should not have done that holy shit, he thought. His mouth was dry and his palms were sweating and he couldn't stop looking at Jackson and Jackson didn't stop looking at him.

Finally Jackson turned his gaze up at the stars and replied.

"I know."

Then Jackson was kissing him, so soft and sweet that Stiles swore that the stars were shattering above them. 

Jackson tasted like peppermint gum and the stale cigarettes he flinched off his father and a little bit of something else entirely, sweet and sad and warm. 

Jackson stopped kissing him and turned towards the sky instead. He laced their hands together and sighed. 

Jackson didn't stop smiling for the rest of the night, all the way until dawn.

Stiles could live a thousand lifetimes and never be tired of seeing Jackson smile.

*******

He understands why Jackson won't tell his parents. He remembers that Jackson's dad refuses to have Danny over for dinner because he's gay. So Jackson coming out to the worlds biggest homophobe would be a easily avoided disaster. 

And likewise Stiles doesn't want to tell any friends, being gay with the Lacrosse captain would snatch away all privacy he had managed to covet during the whole werewolf thing.

So they're fine mumbling greetings in the hallway, sitting at different lunch tables, stealing glances, avoiding rumors. 

They're fine. 

They mean it.

But sometimes Jackson storms into Stiles room fuming over some homophobic comment or action his father did. 

It takes all of Stiles reasoning and insisting to convince Jackson not to drag him over and introduce his as his boyfriend. 

He sulks for hours later and refuses to return his mothers calls but he's ultimately grateful for Stiles voice of reason.

Days like those are the closest Jackson comes to saying I love you back. 

They rest thick and dense on the tip of his tongue and it would be so easy to just spit them out. 

He swallows the words and they leave a horrible rotting taste going back down.

*************  
The voice returns more insistent than ever Stiles junior year. He knows it has something to do with the sacrifice he made with Scott and Alison. 

The voices' offer still stands, and the world seems to be getting heavier every minute. 

Stiles doesn't ignore it anymore, and slowly his adamant no turns to maybe someday. 

Jackson spends more time at his house, Stiles no longer sleeps without him there. Stiles doesn't tell him that, but he doesn't have to, Jackson knows. 

*****************

It was Monday, Stiles' adderall was still doing its job, he was able to sleep well enough when someone was home, he was eating at least one meal a day.

Tuesday, he couldn't focus, no matter how much adderall, he could sleep, couldn't eat. He did nothing but pace all day, Jackson could smell his anxiety from miles away. Jackson came and hugged him through his fourth panic attack of the day. 

Stiles felt like he had lived his whole live with a radio in his head, playing the sand station at a lie volume. And now every station and the static in-between them was on full blast. He couldn't hold a though for the life of him. 

Jackson put him to bed, faced towards the wall and pretended not to cry. 

After lying down with Jackson for a couple of minutes the sound inside his head stops. It just stops. 

He goes to shake Jackson but when he goes to grab him there is nothing there. He's not in his bedroom, he's in the hospital. His mother is yelling at the nurse, her face is ugly with anger and she's spitting her words out like chewing tobacco spit. 

Oh god he remembers this, in the last stages of her life she was always like this, even to him and his father sometimes. His nine year old self stumbles backwards, the back of his knees buckling when they hit the chair.

His mother turns to him with a look in her eyes that changes everything. She is not his mother, she is a monster in her clothes and she is going to kill him. 

His death mother lurches out of her hospital bed, rail thin fingers out stretched to squeeze the life out of him. 

He screams. He screams until his voice breaks and he is unable to stop himself.

******  
When he does stop, everything sounds far away and tinny, like someone was shouting at him from miles away in a tunnel. 

Lips are pressed against the crown of his head and his hair is damp. 

Jackson's sobbing shamelessly, and Stiles feels so bad for scaring him like that.

He wants to ask what happened, and he know Jackson wants to know too, but he's afraid that if he talks about it that will make it real.

So they sit there until Jackson's sobs become hiccups and fade to sniffles. 

*******

They so talk about it, a week later, stiles refuses to tell him about the voice whose offers are becoming harder to refuse. Or that he hasn't slept for more than 45 minutes at a time since that night.

According to Jackson, he was sleeping fine but Jackson woke up to him trashing around and screaming his head off. The screaming lasted for 32 minutes, Jackson couldn't wake him up. 

Stiles doesn't tell him about his dead mother trying to kill him, or how real it felt. He tells him that he's gonna lay off the scary movies and just nap after school. 

Jackson walks him to every class that day and eats lunch with him, an extremely rare occurrence.

***************

The voice stops offering, starts telling him that it's going to take all of it away. It promises to make him the son his father wanted, the boyfriend Jackson would love, the pack member Derek doubted he could be. 

Stiles tells the voice that he hasn't promised anything yet. His voice shakes so bad that he has to repeat it twice. 

He has not slept in days, not eaten, his father has taken the night shift every night that week in order to pay off the bills. 

Jackson comes over every night and after school. They talk a lot, about nothing in general, they sit on stiles bed or on his roof. 

Jackson gains more bruises and scratches from Stiles frantic nightmares, and his eyes are always red and slightly swollen. 

***********

Stiles would give anything to be Atlas again, to only hold the world. Because now it's crashing down on top of him.

His prank on Coach if the same idea as the serial killer. The writing in the board is his own. He's irritable to the point that he can't stand to be around anyone. 

He's dreaming when he's awake, and he can never tell when he's dreaming until he screams himself out of it.

Somewhere in the back of his mind he understands. He knows he's dying. And he knows that this is what killed his mother too. He can feel it in the anger and exhaustion in his bones. 

*********  
When stiles wakes up with his leg in the metal trap, he knows that he is gone. He remembers being at the hospital, talking to Melissa McCall. 

His fingers are clumsy and it takes him three tries to call Scott. He doesn't want Jackson to see him like this. 

The voice is there again, speaking in riddles and Japanese. 

It calls him Atlas. 

In the dead of night, in god knows where, the voice sounds like him mother in her last good days. 

It's a voice that has taken him seven years to try and forget.

**********

When he's finally free of the Notsigune, Jackson kisses him. In front of Stiles dad, and Scott and the whole pack, Jackson just kisses him.

He assumes from the look of betrayal on Scott's face that he's going to be in big trouble when this is all over.

He doesn't care.

 

*****

To be fair, Jackson tried. He tried to help fight the Oni, but every time Stiles showed up or the thing wearing his face, he couldn't move.

The demon likes Jackson, remembers him from the weeks he spent in stiles. 

The battle with Derek and the twins, the demon stopped fighting for only a second turning to face him.

"Tsk, tsk, Jacks you shouldn't be here. We wouldn't want you to get hurt." It looks like Stiles, speaks like him, and Jackson finds himself nodding. 

He stops torn in between helping the pack or the boy he loves. But it's not the boy he loves, he forgets that when The thing wear his face smiles so nice, all teeth and bleeding gums. 

"Why?" He once chocked out when it asked him to leave once more.

"I have a soft spot for the very broken things in the world, you and your Atlas are among them."

"You forget I know you, Thanatos. The bringer of Death, this is your doing. You set these events in motion, and for that I thank you. But my good grace will spare you no longer, run Thanatos run. "

At this Jackson runs as fast and far as his feet will take him. 

Thanatos, whose touch is gentle and soft and is death all the same.

Thanatos, it calls to him, run Thanatos, son of the night, run.

**************

So here they sit, a clearing about a mile away from the lacrosse field.

Two monsters wearing the faces of boys. There is no glory for titans and gods, but glory was never in the plan. Only eternity.

And honestly this time they're ok with that.

They really are.


End file.
